Cleveland Alliance for School Climate Research

The partnership will analyze secondary data (including both a climate survey and student achievement and behavioral data) to address two questions: (1) What is the relationship between school-average student survey reports of school climate and school average standardized test scores and course grades, days of attendance, and suspensions? and (2) within the same school, do certain subgroups of students systematically provide different reports of school climate than others? The team will conduct focus group interviews with students, school staff members, and parents to identify explanations for the quantitative findings on these two questions.

Initial Research: The researchers will combine data from several sources:

• the Conditions for Learning Survey (CFL), a survey of school climate given three times a year;
• administrative data on student performance on the Measures of Academic Progress (a series of assessments developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association) for math, reading, and science;
• administrative data on attendance and suspensions; and
• administrative data on student characteristics (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, school mobility, receipt of EL services, and median income of census track).

The researchers will use the data to carry out two analyses. The first analysis will examine the relationship between school-average student survey reports of school climate and school-average standardized test scores, days of attendance, and suspensions. The second analysis will examine whether within the same school, certain subgroups systematically provide different reports on school climate. District personnel will then carry out qualitative research (involving students, parents, and teachers) to understand the differences at schools found to have large subgroup differences versus schools with no subgroup differences. The partnership will analyze the qualitative data together.